Life After Lawmaking

COVER STORY

Ex-legislator Fighting For Issues While Planning Lobbying Strategy

TALLAHASSEE — After 14 years as one of Florida's most powerful legislators, former Rep. Sam Bell is learning there is life after lawmaking.

Defeated in a re-election bid last fall by Republican Dick Graham of DeLand, Bell moved to Tallahassee from Ormond Beach, married Education Commissioner Betty Castor last month and opened an office for a Daytona Beach law firm.

He is in a legal limbo, however, running a firm that figures to become a major player on the legislative lobbying scene. He is prohibited for two years by the state Constitution from personally lobbying lawmakers.

To say that former legislators who become lobbyists don't lobby for two years after they leave office, however, is a neat legal fiction. What they do is plan strategy while hiring former legislative staffers to do the actual lobbying.

The chief lobbyist for Bell's firm is Kevin Crowley, who was general counsel for the House in the 1987 and 1988 sessions. But it is Bell's decade-old reputation as one of the state's best-known lawmakers that is expected to bring clients in the door.

''I'm trying to be very careful,'' Bell said. ''I'm not making any contacts with anyone myself. I've been trying to avoid social events where there would be some question about it. It's an awkward situation.''

Bell is representing clients before state regulatory agencies on health-care issues, one of his main concerns when he was a lawmaker. He also has been hired by the Florida Homebuilders Association as its lawyer in a lawsuit aimed at forcing the state to pay for growth-management efforts.

''I'm getting paid to speak out on the issues that I have fought for as a legislator,'' Bell said. ''And what it will do, hopefully, is get that issue back into the legislative forum where it needs to be.''

As a non-lobbyist, he will plot strategies for two of his firm's biggest clients - Orlando Magic owner William duPont III and Hertz Corp. DuPont wants lawmakers to raise the resort tax to pay for a stadium that would house an expansion baseball team he is trying to get. Hertz wants to eliminate collision damage waivers on rental cars.

Ralph Haben, a former House speaker who became a prominent lobbyist, said Bell soon will learn to love his new role.

''One day, Sam is going to realize that you can play politics over here as well,'' Haben said. ''The challenges are even greater than they are on the inside, because you can't just say 'yes' and 'no.' But at the end of every day, someone gives you a bunch of money.''

With their contacts among legislators and their knowledge of the process, lawmakers-turned-lobbyists start out with a huge advantage.

''Not only do you know them, but you have a relationship with them that's different than their relationship with anybody else,'' Haben said.